1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to communication interconnection and cross connection equipment and, more particularly, relates to an embedded communication enclosure for housing and supporting communication devices that provide communication connection with an input cable.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the current field of communication access, fiber to the X (FTTX) technique, as a solution of broadband application, is increasingly employed, in which fiber to the home (FTTH), fiber to the building (FTTB), and fiber to the curb (FTTC) become main choices of communication operators. In the FTTX link, an arrangement position of an optical network unit as a key device is very important. In the FTTX link, an external wall mount box or enclosure or embedded wall mount communication enclosure is usually employed in a home, building or premise to receive communication devices, for example, including the optical network unit, that provide communication connection with an input optical fiber. Frequently, these types of enclosures are located in basements, closets, or communication cupboards which may have limited available space. The external wall mount enclosure can be easily mounted, but occupies a larger outer space within the basements, closets, or communication cupboards. Compared with the external wall mounted communication enclosure, the embedded communication enclosure is substantially flush with wall in which it is mounted providing an aesthetic appearance and a significant saving of space in the installation location. These advantages make an embedded communication enclosure a popular choice for premise installations.
In many premises such as multi-family dwelling units (e.g. apartment buildings) and office buildings, customers frequently move or are relocated or the level of service required by a given customer may change. These changes in location or service level frequently require that jumpers be changed in the premise's communication enclosure to efficiently allocate resources within the premise. However, the communication devices housed in the communication enclosure do not need to be accessed as frequently. Accordingly, it is desirable to separately manage the communication devices and the jumpers, so that the jumpers can be maintained and changed without influencing the communication devices housed in the communication enclosure.
Accordingly, many attempts have been made for solving this problem. U.S. Pat. No. 7,276,659, for example, discloses an enclosure having a closure member, comprising a front door, a middle section and a back body section. The back body section is provided on the top side and/or bottom side thereof with cut-outs. One or more closure members are detachably mounted to the back body section to at least partially cover a lay-in cable entry sections defined by the cut-outs. In this way, in use, cables can be mounted into the enclosure through the cut-outs, and then the closure members are mounted to the cut-outs to close the enclosure. Thus, with the arrangement, even if the front door and the middle section of the enclosure are closed, the cables can be mounted into the enclosure, so that access to the communication devices housed in the enclosure and management of the cables can be separately implemented.
However, there still exist some problems in such an enclosure. Since the enclosure opens on the top or bottom thereof, a user has to insert the cables from the top or bottom of the enclosure, and thus operation of the enclosure is inconvenient. Moreover, due to restrictions of the enclosure's design, the cut-outs on the back body section of the enclosure are very narrow, and thus it is difficult to insert/pull the cable into/from the enclosure.
Therefore, a demand exists for an improved communication enclosure that can efficiently and reliably manage and maintain the communication devices and the cables.